Inés Castillo: how the record of the badminton player who won four gold medals at the 2022 Bolivarian Games was created | Olympic Games | Paris 2024 | IPD | RMMD DTCC | SPORT-TOTAL

From Monday to Friday, Inés Castillo spends more time at La Videna than at home, training double shifts to continue improving her sports career in badminton. Today the young athlete trains in a coliseum with 10 international courts, together with her teammates from the other teams and from para badminton. In these facilities, sweat and sacrifice are breathed, between shouts and orders from the coaches, these athletes prepare to the maximum to represent and leave the name of Peru at the top.

MIRA: Medals in all major events: the history that makes Alexandra Grande an icon of Peruvian sports

Almost a decade has passed since Ines Castillo started playing badminton. At just 10 years old, the young Peruvian came to this sport that her father played on the courts of the Regatas Lima club. Now 22 years old, she has sports as her priority with a clear goal: to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

After a great performance in the last edition of the Bolivarian Games Valledupar 2022, Inés returned to our capital with four gold medals under the arm in the individual, doubles, teams and mixed doubles modalities. “It is always an emotion to give a victory to Peru”, he assures today, adding that it was not easy to achieve these victories on a course where the height of 2600 meters above sea level made the boom much faster. To adapt to this, she and the entire badminton team arrived in Colombia a week earlier, so that they could acclimatize and choose the best game strategy.

“I think this has been one of the most exciting victories because they played the games live, which is very rare, and my family and friends were able to see me,” account excited and happy. The sacrifices of the national athlete have not been few, in all these years she has put aside many family and leisure moments to focus on her training and competitions, but she assures that they have been worth it to get to where she is today .

Today Inés is studying fashion design and management at the University of Applied Sciences and although it is true that she knows the importance of having a university degree, she is very clear that badminton is currently above all things, which is why which takes few courses.

Having been in the sport for so many years, Inés has seen firsthand the great change that the Lima 2019 Pan American Games brought with it and the important legacy it left in our country. “10 years ago things were very different, now we have top-level sports facilities that help raise the potential of athletes”, tells us. He also believes that this has led to many more athletes adding medals and victories for Peru.

In the case of badminton, today they have 10 courts where the different teams train and this has led to the emergence of new figures. “I think that now more boys are encouraged to practice badminton, the Federation has been doing work to spread the sport and that is something that I would not have imagined before”. Arequipa, Ayacucho, Trujillo, Piura, Tacna and Tingo María are some of the provinces where this work is being done to bring the sport to more young people.

With the Bolivarian Games over, Inés has her next destination in sight: the Badminton World Championships which will take place in Tokyo towards the end of August, where the national athlete will compete in doubles with her partner Paula the Tower. For this they have been preparing hard, with extremely hard training, with the aim of arriving in optimal conditions to face the best in the world.

Following this, the young woman will continue with the Olympic cycle by participating in the Odesur Games in Paraguay in October. In the long term, Inés already sees the Pan American Games in Santiago 2023 on the horizon and achieving the long-awaited qualification for the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, after the participation of her friend and teammate Daniela Macías in Tokyo 2020.

Now Inés Castillo will continue training to forge her career as a professional athlete in the sport she loves. “Badminton is essential in my life, I can’t imagine my life without it”, comments excited. A promising future awaits the new figure of national badminton, in which we hope he continues to fill Peru with triumphs and joy.